“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” We’d been sitting on the couch for about half an hour, and Rebecca had asked me that question nearly once a minute after she’d settled down somewhat. I was perfectly fine. Before Pink Shoes had tried to take a swing at my girlfriend, the only thing that was getting on my nerves was the feeling of being crowded by drunk, sweaty strangers at a party. Other than that, I didn’t have much to complain about.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.” I pulled her closer and let her put her face on my shoulder. A few people gave us passing glances. I was grateful everyone either had to relieve themselves in the restrooms or were eager to go back to partying to pay us much attention. That gave us as much privacy as one could hope for in our situation. I used as much of my body as I could to block people from seeing her. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“I thought he was going to hurt you.” Rebecca looked up at me and rubbed her eyes. A few pitiful sniffles escaped her. She didn’t end up crying, so I thought she was trying to shake off the effects of the alcohol, which seemed to be vanishing as quickly as they hit her. While there weren’t any tears in her eyes, they were filled with anguish and some of the worst fear I’d ever seen. “I can’t lose anyone else, Ethan. All of you guys are the only people that make this world bearable for me. You and Megan...I can’t...I couldn’t do it. I won’t be able to handle it if something happens to any of you.”
“None of us are going anywhere. We’re all-”
“You can’t know that! You have no idea what’s going to happen to you tonight, tomorrow, next week, or next year! Trust me, I know how much can change in an instant. All of this is just...so much.” Her shouting drew more curious gazes to us, this time they lingered longer than I cared for. Still, something that looked like a couple’s spat probably wasn’t that out of place at a party, so the attention we drew was ultimately minimal. It was a great blessing that nearly everyone on the boat wasn’t a normal person.
“You’re right, I don’t know what’ll happen in the future. Anything could happen, good or bad. I could slip in the shower and die at home. Pretty crappy way to go, then I’d be found naked on top of it.” Rebecca’s glare and twitching mouth were giving me mixed signals about how my joke was received. I leaned my head back against the wall and sighed, staring at the ceiling for a few minutes. “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”
“Every day,” she confirmed. “I go to bed at night wondering if you’re going to run out to try and save the day and if that’ll be the time you don’t come back home. I go to bed wondering if I’ll wake up next to you the next morning. I look at that little girl’s face, knowing she already lost her parents, and it terrifies me to think she might lose more people she loves so soon. After I woke up in a world without my daughter, people like you, Megan, and Shelly make life worth living. What happened in New York was too close for comfort. When I was carrying you out, I was so scared you weren’t going to make it.”
I really didn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t told me any of that before and I could never even tell she felt that way. That she felt that strongly about me and my well-being. I felt like that made me a bad boyfriend. We were a couple. Why wouldn’t she care about all the danger I was in? Why wouldn’t she care about my well-being, my feelings, my past, my present, and my future? I had been so used to only having one other person genuinely care about me on a deep level for so long that I forgot what it felt like when that kind of affection and care came from other people.
I didn’t know what else I could do about our situation to help her. I couldn’t read minds and I wasn’t always the most tuned in to someone’s emotions, though I did try to be. I didn’t like how it was probably the alcohol that made her open up either, even if it appeared to be exiting her system quickly. If there was something bothering her, I wanted her to feel like she could talk to me about it with a calm and clear mind. I didn’t want booze to be the thing that made us have important discussions. Alcohol was not what you wanted for genuine conversations.
“What is it you want?” I asked softly, taking care to keep any perceived bite out of my tone. I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye. I was too scared of how she would answer. Scared enough that I found myself nearly rambling. “Out of this, I mean. Us. You and me. Everything, really.”
“Land. Cows. A shed. A garden. A nice sunhat.” She swung her legs out in front of her and stretched them, pulling at the fishnet material she hated so much. “Maybe...the chance to start a family. Hopefully permanent this time. You know, with you and Megan.”
Didn’t need her to clarify that part, but it didn’t make me go any less red. I coughed awkwardly into my hand and found an interesting spot on the floor to look at. I didn’t have the mental capacity to unpack all of those implications, so I just settled on being flattered that someone saw enough in me to want me to be a permanent part of their life. Embarrassed and flattered.
“I like you. I like you a lot.” She scooted closer to me and wow, they had a stain on the carpet that looked almost like Florida! How cool was that? “I don’t think I want anything extravagant or spectacular. I have my health and I have people who have been nothing but kind to me since I woke up in this time. The real thing I want—the thing I can’t get from a trip to the doctor or anything like that—is you and Megan.”
“Why?” It slipped out before I could stop it and I cringed at myself. I didn’t know a lot about dating and girlfriends. The girls at my high school would have probably been able to pick out a billion things I’d done wrong since I started dating Rebecca. Even a dolt like me knew why asking your girlfriend why she liked you was a little lame. If she didn’t find me appealing in some way, why would she have been with me anyway? What would that have said about her?
“The reason you caught that punch for me.” I finally built up the courage to look at her again and saw that she was wrinkling her nose. “Let me put that in a new way. You’re not super cool or like men from my time who tried to court me. You’re not this macho meathead with foolish bravado leaking out of every pore. What you are is a hero and a good man. You want to help people and you don’t even think about it. It’s dangerous, and I hate it for that, but it’s good, it’s noble, and it’s right. It’s one of the qualities about you I like the most.
“And you’re a hero to me in a thousand little other ways. You cook, clean, and you try your best to teach Megan. You do those things on top of juggling your own schooling and practicing with your powers. You let me ramble about my silly comic books. You answer my questions without making me feel stupid. Just being here for a few months has shown me that a lot of guys your age aren’t responsible. You have this calm reliability that both calms and excites my heart. Rose’s father and some of the other boys that I was interested in would hardly lift a finger for someone other than themselves.”
I just stared at my shoes. I never really thought of myself as at all heroic in any capacity. I was just a guy. I did agree that I wasn’t cool or particularly manly like a lot of guys from her time were, though. Her saying I was a hero with everything going on around us did help me understand her perspective and why that stressed her out. She wanted a nice life with some cattle, a garden, and kids. If she thought I wanted to be a superhero and risk my well-being, I could see how that would clash with what she wanted. If our roles had been completely reversed, I wouldn’t want her near McLeod either. I hated that she had the one power that could just turn him into a normal man, which would force her to be involved whether she liked it or not.
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“Do you want me to not fight McLeod? Do you want me to give it up?” It wasn’t condescending or accusatory. I almost felt tired and defeated asking her.
It was her turn to think for a while. Truly, I did not want to fight McLeod. The man scared me. I couldn’t even use an open flame grill without having fear threaten to close up my throat. He was living in my head, maybe not rent-free, but he wasn’t paying a premium to stay there. Each second that passed felt like an hour, and I couldn’t decide if I hated the anxiety from Rebecca’s silence or the memories of McLeod flooding back to me. The sweat gathering on my palms and underarms made me feel like a gross, disgusting weirdo who desperately needed to hop in the shower. I would have gladly taken another burning hole in my arm if it meant I could just put on some more deodorant.
“Honey, you have to do what you feel like you need to,” she finally said. It was the clearest thing she said in a while, without being bogged down by alcohol or heavy emotions. “It’s dangerous, and I’ll worry about you every day. If you don’t come back to me, there will be a part of me that never forgives you, I’ll admit that. Still, you’re a man. You’ll have to decide what’s right for you. You’ll decide what you think is right for the people you love. I’ll support you and whatever decision you think is best for you. It’s just not the life for me. I’ll help you with this McLeod thing, but after that, I don’t want to be part of the hero life. I want to be a mother. I want to manage a home. I want to take care of a family and raise kids.”
“Oh man, I thought you were going to break up with me.” Back against the wall, I slid down a bit, letting out a sigh of relief. The vibrations from the music were making my head shake, so I quickly sat back up normally.
“What? Why would you think that?” She looked a little hurt and a lot dumbfounded.
“I thought you’d tell me that I had to choose between you or trying to help people with my powers.” I picked at a spot on the side of my head so I could avoid making eye contact. “Or at least that you’d try and talk me out of it. Since, you know, you don’t really want anything to do with it.”
“Ugh, Ethan, look...” Rebecca rubbed her eyes, planted her elbows on her knees, and looked forward. “I’m not in love with the idea. I want something permanent and this spits right in the face of permanent. I wanted that back when I had Rose. I didn’t get that, and I came to this time period with nothing, so that’s what I want now. If I didn’t think that there could...be something permanent with you in the future, there wouldn’t have been any of this to begin with. I certainly wouldn’t wear this stupid costume for any other man out there. I was interested in you enough that I tried to pursue you even though I don’t really know how to be the pursuer. You saw me at my absolute worst and weakest in that cave. So, no, I don’t have any interest in breaking up with you. I’m too old to play stupid games with your emotions and my own. I know what I want, and I know that I want you to be part of that.”
“I didn’t know you were that serious about this.” It felt weird to have that kind of conversation on a boat with a bunch of costumed partiers around, music trying to thump in my skull and ribcage. No one around us cared. They were all too busy enjoying themselves. It still felt like something we should be talking about by ourselves, in the privacy of our own bedroom, preferably in normal clothing.
“I wore these stupid shoes and these...what are these again?” She gently pulled at her legwear, careful not to rip anything.
“The fishnets?”
“Yeah, those. I don’t know much about how women are today, so I’ll tell you again, you have to make me happy to get me to wear this nonsense.” She stretched out her legs again, frowning at what she saw. A couple of guys nearby didn’t hide the fact that they were looking either, which didn’t even agitate me. In fact, I felt a little smug because that was my girlfriend. “In defense of Lizzy, she did spend way too long looking for something else that’d work. She told me not finding the right fit was a common thing in women’s clothing. These do make my muscles look nice, though.”
“I don’t think the guys here seem to care that much about finding the right thing.” I directed her attention to a few of the leering eyes. I put my arm around her shoulders and nearly every guy that had been watching rolled their eyes and went back to the party. My confidence in my relationship with Rebecca was through the roof, especially since she told me that she wasn’t there to play games and still chose me. A couple of pervs checking her out wasn’t anywhere near enough to make me jealous or grumpy.
Rebecca still pulled her legs back in and grumbled a few choice words for them. “If I broke up with you, that would be all that was left for me. I think I’ll take the guy who likes to cook and help the little girl who lost her parents.”
“You’re going to give me an ego.” I couldn’t hide the grin from her.
“And when that happens, I’ll call the girls to come and help put you in your place.” She grinned right back.
“Please no, not the girls! Anything but them!” I shuddered and put my head into my hands. While I was joking and having a fun time, the threat of them was still in the back of my mind. If I really did do something to upset them as a group, they’d have no trouble beating me into some goop that would have to be scraped off the ground. Or, worse than that, I’d be genuinely crushed if I seriously hurt any of them in any way.
“I’m sorry about overdoing it at the bar,” she said, voice and expression turning serious. “I really want to help you with this, it’d just been so long since I felt like I could let loose a little. Maybe I let myself get a little too loose with the drinking back there. I’ll keep it in check if you still want to try and get some info.”
I didn’t want to go back to the bar. I was worried about another fight trying to break out. I was worried about either of us drinking that weird alcohol that messed with heads faster than it should have. I was worried about what trying to stop McLeod meant for my relationship with my girlfriend. Sure, she said she’d support me, but how far would that really go? If it took years of living in fear of him and what he was capable of, how long could anyone really last? The cracks in the foundation would turn into sinkholes, swallowing us both whole.
Instead of going back in there with her, I sat for a little while longer. Like I did when I saw passing cars on a long trip, I stared out into the sea of people, focusing in on faces, jewelry, hair, or anything else that might’ve told me about them. They were all people I’d almost certainly never see again in my entire life, however long that would end up being with McLeod looming over the world’s head. After a couple of nights of partying in stupid costumes, I’d never have a real reason to think of the people dancing around me again.
And yet, they were all still people. They were people with their own stories, their own fears, and their own opinions on McLeod. Some of them probably agreed with him while some probably opposed him. I imagined most just wanted to be left alone so they could live their own lives. Even if they weren’t like me, they were to an extent. They had overworked older sisters, they had girlfriends with family goals, they had odd friends who still stuck around through tough times, and they had little girls at home who were depending on them. I couldn’t help but smile out at all of them, something none of them would see. They had their own worries and goals, and for a night, they were setting them aside to have a little bit of fun.
Rebecca must’ve sensed something in my mood shift. She stood up carefully, not trusting her legs or the shoes that already threatened her balance. When she was confident enough she could move around, she held out her hand to me, a wide smile on her face. “Or, hey, if you want to get a little trashed yourself, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to haul you out of a bad spot.”